June 2011 Briefing - Hematology & Oncology

Here are what the editors at HealthDay consider to be the most important developments in Hematology & Oncology for June 2011. This roundup includes the latest research news from journal articles, as well as the FDA approvals and regulatory changes that are the most likely to affect clinical practice.

Low-Dose CT Screening Tied to Reduced Lung Cancer Mortality

THURSDAY, June 30 (HealthDay News) -- Screening with low-dose helical computed tomography (CT) may reduce mortality from lung cancer, according to a study published online June 29 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

THURSDAY, June 30 (HealthDay News) -- An automated mobile phone text messaging smoking cessation program (txt2stop) can significantly improve continued abstinence in smokers, according to a study published online June 30 in The Lancet.

THURSDAY, June 30 (HealthDay News) -- African-Americans (AAs) with thyroid cancer have a poorer survival rate than whites, which may be attributed to differences in disease characteristics, according to a study published online June 21 in Ethnicity & Disease.

THURSDAY, June 30 (HealthDay News) -- Women awaiting diagnostic breast biopsy or invasive treatment experience increased stress levels, but only those awaiting biopsy have increased anxiety, according to a study published in the July issue of Radiology.

THURSDAY, June 30 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) with advanced fibrosis or cirrhosis may have fewer liver-related complications and less hepatocellular cancer than patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, but may have similar overall mortality, according to a study published online June 17 in Hepatology.

THURSDAY, June 30 (HealthDay News) -- Somatic point mutations are frequently found in myelodysplastic syndromes, and may be correlated with specific clinical features, according to a study published in the June 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

WEDNESDAY, June 29 (HealthDay News) -- Attenuated strains of virulent laboratory organisms like Yersinia pestis (Y. pestis) may pose a risk to researchers with undiagnosed hemochromatosis, according to a letter published in the June 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

TUESDAY, June 28 (HealthDay News) -- Invitation to mammographic screening is correlated with a significant reduction in mortality from breast cancer in the long term, according to a study published online June 28 in Radiology.

TUESDAY, June 28 (HealthDay News) -- Patients undergoing chemotherapy with sunitinib or sorafenib develop seroprotection rates similar to healthy controls following vaccination against influenza, according to a study published online June 28 in Clinical Cancer Research.

TUESDAY, June 28 (HealthDay News) -- A new breast cancer risk model predicts that changes in the modifiable risk factors in a woman's lifestyle may reduce the absolute risk of developing breast cancer, according to a study published online June 24 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

TUESDAY, June 28 (HealthDay News) -- Low-dose vitamin D and calcium supplementation do not reduce the overall incidence of nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) in postmenopausal women, but may benefit women with a history of NMSC, according to a study published online June 27 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

MONDAY, June 27 (HealthDay News) -- In response to the publication of clinical trials there was an increase in the number of women with high-risk breast cancer receiving postmastectomy radiation therapy (PMRT), but no further increase has been seen following publication of evidence-based guidelines, according to a study published online June 27 in Cancer.

FRIDAY, June 24 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recommended more conservative dosing guidelines for the use of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) in the treatment of anemia associated with chronic kidney disease, as these drugs are tied to an increased risk of cardiovascular events.

THURSDAY, June 23 (HealthDay News) -- The use of asbestos has increased drastically in Asia since 1970, with 64 percent of global use from 2001 to 2007 attributable to Asia, according to a review published online March 30 in Respirology.

WEDNESDAY, June 22 (HealthDay News) -- A large, ongoing outbreak of the hemolytic-uremic syndrome caused by Shiga-toxin-producing Escherichia coli (E. coli) in Germany is occurring mostly in adults, primarily women, according to a study published online June 22 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

WEDNESDAY, June 22 (HealthDay News) -- Screening for early melanoma detection should be focused on the at-risk population, according to a study published in the June issue of the Archives of Dermatology.

WEDNESDAY, June 22 (HealthDay News) -- There is insufficient evidence to support pretesting for thiopurine S-methyltransferase (TPMT) status before initiating thiopurine treatment, and estimates of the sensitivity of genotyping are imprecise, according to a review published in the June 21 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

TUESDAY, June 21 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who are treated with anti-tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) therapy do not have an increased risk of serious infections and malignancies compared to those treated with methotrexate (MTX), according to a meta-analysis published in the June issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism.

TUESDAY, June 21 (HealthDay News) -- Men who are smokers at the time of prostate cancer diagnosis have an increased risk of total mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality, prostate cancer mortality, and recurrence, according to a study published in the June 22/29 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

TUESDAY, June 21 (HealthDay News) -- The guideline-concordance levels are mainly high in surgical oncology care, but are lower in certain areas, including nodal management, according to a study published online June 20 in the Archives of Surgery.

TUESDAY, June 21 (HealthDay News) -- The increased expenditure attributable to cancer applies to all cancer survivors, including longer-term survivors, according to a study published in the June 15 issue of Cancer.

MONDAY, June 20 (HealthDay News) -- Open colorectal (OC) surgery is associated with a significantly higher risk of perioperative venous thromboembolism (VTE) than laparoscopic colorectal (LC) surgery, according to a study published in the June issue of the Archives of Surgery.

MONDAY, June 20 (HealthDay News) -- Viral-expressed complementary DNA (cDNA) libraries may offer a novel way of treating cancer, according to an experimental study published online June 19 in Nature Medicine.

FRIDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- The risk of malignant progression for patients with Barrett's esophagus (BE) may be lower than previously reported, according to a study published online June 16 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

FRIDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- Routine reproductive health screenings, including Papanicolaou (Pap) smears and sexually transmitted infection (STI) tests, are underutilized by sexual minority adolescent and young adult women, according to a study published online June 7 in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

FRIDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- The majority of post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorders (PTLDs) that are localized in the allograft are of donor origin and are diagnosed earlier, according to a study published in the June issue of the American Journal of Transplantation.

FRIDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- There has been a steady decline in overall cancer death rates in the United States from 1990 to 2007, but this decline has not affected all segments of the population, according to the American Cancer Society Cancer Statistics 2011 report published online June 17 in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

FRIDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- The incidence of high-grade cervical abnormalities (HGAs) has decreased in girls younger than 18 years, within three years of the implementation of a population-wide human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination program in Australia, according to a review published in the June 18 issue of The Lancet.

THURSDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned consumers and health care professionals that pioglitazone (Actos) may increase the risk of bladder cancer when used for more than one year.

THURSDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- Mutations in CYP24A1 are associated with increased sensitivity to vitamin D in patients with idiopathic infantile hypercalcemia, and may be a potential genetic risk factor for the development of symptomatic hypercalcemia in otherwise healthy infants, according to a study published online June 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

THURSDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- Opioid-related deaths occur due to multifactorial causes, and solutions are required to address all the causes, according to a review published online June 13 in a supplement of Pain Medicine.

THURSDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- Retreatment with concurrent chemotherapy and reirradiation (CReRT) may be a treatment option for a specific group of patients with recurrent or second primary head and neck cancer (HNC), although prior treatment with chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is associated with worse overall survival (OS), according to a study published online June 13 in Cancer.

THURSDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- For children with indwelling arterial catheters (IACs), the incidence of arterial thrombosis is increased in the femoral artery and is independently associated with age, according to a study published in the June issue of the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis.

THURSDAY, June 16 (HealthDay News) -- Access to outpatient care is restricted for children with public insurance compared to those with private insurance, according to a study published in the June 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

WEDNESDAY, June 15 (HealthDay News) -- Most counties within the United States fall behind the international frontier with the best life expectancies in the world, according to a study published online June 15 in Population Health Metrics.

TUESDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) -- The number of paid malpractice claims is similar in both inpatient and outpatient settings, according to a study published in the June 15 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

TUESDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced that sunscreen products that meet modern standards of effectiveness may be labeled with new information to help consumers reduce the risk of skin cancer, prevent sunburn, and lower the risk of early skin aging.

MONDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- The mobile phone radio frequency (RF) energy dose absorbed at a tumor location depends on tumor location, phone type, network properties, and conditions of use, and individuals with high mobile phone use may have an increased risk of gliomas in the most exposed areas of the brain, according to two studies published online June 9 in Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

MONDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- Elbow reconstruction with modular prostheses of the distal end of the humerus offers stable reconstruction after tumor resection, but it is less successful for revision surgery in patients without a tumor, according to a study published in the June 1 issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery.

MONDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma who are treated with radical pleurectomy (RP) and intraoperative photodynamic therapy (PDT) have improved overall survival compared to those treated with modified extrapleural pneumonectomy (MEPP), according to a study published in the June issue of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.

FRIDAY, June 10 (HealthDay News) -- Styrene, found in items including foam coffee cups and takeout containers, has been added to the list of chemicals considered possibly carcinogenic to humans, according to a new U.S. government report, the 12th Report on Carcinogens.

THURSDAY, June 9 (HealthDay News) -- Drugs in the class of 5-alpha reductase inhibitors (5-ARIs), which includes finasteride and dutasteride, have undergone a label change to reflect current safety information concerning an increased risk of high-grade prostate cancer, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced.

WEDNESDAY, June 8 (HealthDay News) -- Lipofilling may be a safe procedure for breast reconstruction in most patients who undergo surgery for primary breast cancer, according to a study published online May 24 in the Annals of Oncology.

WEDNESDAY, June 8 (HealthDay News) -- There is no evidence-based surveillance technique to detect recurrence of gynecologic cancer, but a combination of taking a detailed history, completing a physical examination, and educating patients about symptoms is the most effective current method, according to the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists recommendations published in the June issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

WEDNESDAY, June 8 (HealthDay News) -- Mohs micrographic surgery (MMS) may effectively treat and prevent tumor recurrence in patients with cutaneous leiomyosarcoma, according to a study published in the June issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

WEDNESDAY, June 8 (HealthDay News) -- The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) system in the United States provides similar or better care for older men with cancer than fee-for-service Medicare, although some new technologies are less available, according to a study published in the June 7 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

TUESDAY, June 7 (HealthDay News) -- Youths between the ages of 10 and 24 years carry 15.5 percent of the global burden of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), according to a study published online June 7 in The Lancet.

TUESDAY, June 7 (HealthDay News) -- Current evidence is inconclusive regarding the efficacy of radiation treatment compared to no treatment for localized prostate cancer, according to a review published online June 6 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

MONDAY, June 6 (HealthDay News) -- Adding zoledronic acid to either anastrozole or tamoxifen improves disease-free survival in women with endocrine-receptor-positive breast cancer who are receiving adjuvant endocrine therapy, according to a study published online June 4 in The Lancet Oncology.

MONDAY, June 6 (HealthDay News) -- The addition of cetuximab to standard chemotherapy for the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer does not improve progression-free survival (PFS) or overall survival (OS), according to a study published online June 4 in The Lancet.

MONDAY, June 6 (HealthDay News) -- Survivors of childhood cancer have an increased risk of developing gastrointestinal (GI) complications later in life, according to a study published in the May issue of Gastroenterology.

FRIDAY, June 3 (HealthDay News) -- Recent advances have identified several molecular mechanisms, which may play a role in sickle cell disease-associated priapism, according to a review published online May 6 in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.

THURSDAY, June 2 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has notified consumers and health care providers that angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) are not associated with an increased risk of developing cancer.

THURSDAY, June 2 (HealthDay News) -- Cystectomy delivered within 10 weeks after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) does not compromise survival of patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), according to a study published online May 19 in Cancer.

WEDNESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with advanced melanoma who are treated with interleukin-2 and melanoma vaccine may have an improved clinical response and longer survival than those treated with interleukin-2 alone, according to a study published in the June 2 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

WEDNESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- Mortality rates for certain high-risk surgical procedures have decreased in the United States, which is partially due to increased market concentration and hospital volume, according to a study published in the June 2 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

WEDNESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- Murine-like gammaretroviruses (MLVs), including xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV), are unlikely to cause either prostate cancer or chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in humans, and their detection in human beings is likely due to sample contamination, according to two studies published online May 31 in Science.

WEDNESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- Most patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatosis (NASH) who develop hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are male and have high rates of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension, according to a study published in the May issue of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

WEDNESDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- In patients with breast cancer, beta-blockers may reduce disease progression and mortality as well as improve relapse-free survival, according to two studies published online May 31 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.